CLAY, Henry, statesman, b. in Hanover county,
Va., in a district known as “The Slashes,” 12
April, 1777; d. in Washington, D. C., 29 June,
1852. His father, a Baptist clergyman, died when
Henry was four years old, leaving no fortune.
Henry received some elementary instruction in a
log school-house, doing farm and house work
when not at school. His mother married again
and removed to Kentucky. When fourteen years
of age he was placed in a small retail store at
Richmond, and in 1792 obtained a place in the
office of Peter Tinsley, clerk of the high court of
chancery. There he attracted the attention of
Chancellor Whyte, who employed him as an
amanuensis, and directed his course of reading.
In 1796 he began to study law with Robert Brooke,
attorney-general of Virginia, and in 1797, having
obtained a license to practise law from the judges
of the court of appeals, he removed to Lexington,
Ky. During his residence in Richmond he had
made the acquaintance of several distinguished
men of Virginia, and became a leading member of
a debating club. At Lexington he achieved his
first distinction in a similar society. He soon won
a lucrative practice as an attorney, being especially
successful in criminal cases and in suits growing
out of the land laws. His captivating manners
and his striking eloquence made him a general
favorite. His political career began almost
immediately after his arrival at Lexington. A
convention
was to be elected to revise the constitution of
Kentucky, and in the canvass preceding the election
Clay strongly advocated a constitutional
provision for the gradual emancipation of the slaves
in the state; but the movement was not successful.
He also participated vigorously in the agitation
against the alien and sedition laws, taking
position as a member of the republican party.
Several of his speeches, delivered in mass meetings,
astonished the hearers by their beauty and force.
In 1799 he married Lucretia Hart, daughter of a
prominent citizen of Kentucky. In 1803 he was
elected to a seat in the state legislature, where he
excelled as a debater. In 1806 Aaron Burr passed
through Kentucky, where he was arrested on a
charge of being engaged in an unlawful enterprise
dangerous to the peace of the United States. He
engaged Clay's professional services, and Clay,
deceived by Burr as to the nature of his schemes,
obtained his release.

In the winter of 1806 Clay was appointed to a
seat in the U. S. Senate to serve out an unexpired
term. He was at once placed on various committees,
and took an active part in the debates,
especially in favor of internal improvements. In the
summer of 1807 his county sent him again to the
legislature, where he was elected speaker of the
assembly. He opposed and defeated a bill
prohibiting the use of the decisions of British courts
and of British works on jurisprudence as authority
in the courts of Kentucky. In December, 1808, he
introduced resolutions expressing approval of the
embargo laid by the general government,
denouncing the British orders in council, pledging
the general government the active aid of Kentucky
in anything determined upon to resist British
exactions, and declaring that President Jefferson was
entitled to the thanks of the country. He offered
another resolution, recommending that the
members of the legislature should wear only clothes
that were the product of domestic manufacture.
This was his first demonstration in favor of the
encouragement of home industry. About this
resolution he had a quarrel with Humphrey
Marshall, which led to a duel, in which both parties
were slightly wounded. In the winter of 1809
Clay was again sent to the U. S. senate to fill an
unexpired term of two years. He made a speech
in favor of encouraging home industries, taking
the ground that the country should be enabled to
produce all it might need in time of war, and that,
while agriculture would remain the dominant
interest, it should be aided by the development of
domestic manufactures. He also made a report on
a bill granting a right of pre-emption to purchasers
of public lands in certain cases, and introduced a
bill to regulate trade and intercourse with the
Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontier,
a subject on which he expressed very wise and
humane sentiments. During the session of 1810-’1
he defended the administration of Mr. Madison
with regard to the occupation of West Florida by
the United States by a strong historical argument,
at the same time appealing, in glowing language,
to the national pride of the American people. He
opposed the renewal of the charter of the U. S.
bank, notwithstanding Gallatin's recommendation,
on the ground of the unconstitutionally of the
bank, and contributed much to its defeat.

On the expiration of his term in the senate, Clay was sent to the national house of representatives by the Lexington district in Kentucky, and immediately upon taking his seat, 4 Nov., 1811, was elected speaker by a large majority. Not confining himself to his duties as presiding officer, he

took a leading part in debate on almost all important

occasions. The difficulties caused by British
interference with neutral trade were then
approaching a crisis, and Clay put himself at the
head of the war party in congress, which was led
in the second line by such voting statesmen as
John C. Calhoun, William Lowndes, Felix Grundy,
and Langdon Cheves, and supported by a strong
feeling in the south and west. In a series of fiery
speeches Clay advocated the calling out of volunteers
to serve on land, and the construction of an
efficient navy. He expected that the war with
Great Britain would be decided by an easy
conquest of Canada, and a peace dictated at Quebec.
The Madison administration hesitated, but was
finally swept along by the war furor created by
the young Americans under Clay's lead, and war
under the young Americans under Clay's lead, and war
against Britain was declared in June, 1812.
Clay spoke at a large number of popular meetings
to fill volunteer regiments and to fire the national
spirit. In congress, while the events of the war
were unfavorable to the United States in
consequence of an utter lack of preparation and
incompetent leadership, Clay vigorously sustained
the administration and the war policy against the
attacks of the federalists. Some of his speeches
were of a high order of eloquence, and electrified
the country. He was re-elected speaker in 1813.
On 19 Jan., 1814, he resigned the speakership, having
been appointed by President Madison a member
of a commission, consisting of John Quincy
Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan
Russell, and Albert Gallatin, to negotiate peace
with Great Britain. The American commissioners
met the commissioners of Great Britain at Ghent.
in the Netherlands, and, after five months of
negotiation, during which Mr. Clay stoutly opposed
the concession to the British of the right of
navigating the Mississippi and of meddling with the
Indians on territory of the United States, a treaty
of peace was signed, 21 Dec., 1814. From Ghent
Clay went to Paris, and thence with Adams and
Gallatin to London, to negotiate a treaty of
commerce with Great Britain.

After his return to the United States, Mr. Clay
declined the mission to Russia, offered by the
administration. Having been elected again to the
house of representatives, he took his seat on
Dec. 4, 1815, and was again chosen speaker. He
favored the enactment of the protective tariff of
1816, and also advocated the establishment of a
U. S. bank as the fiscal agent of the government,
thus reversing his position with regard to that
subject. He now pronounced the bank constitutional
because it was necessary in order to carry on the
fiscal concerns of the government. During the
same session he voted to raise the pay of representatives
from $6 a day to $1,500 a year, a measure
that proved unpopular, and his vote for it came near
costing him his seat. He was, however, re-elected,
but then voted to make the pay of representatives
per diem of $8, which it remained for a long
period. In the session of 1816-’ he, together
with Calhoun, actively supported an internal
improvement bill, which President Madison vetoed.
In December, 1817, Clay was re-elected speaker.
In opposition to the doctrine laid down by Monroe
in his first message, that congress did not possess,
under the constitution, the right to construct
internal improvements, Clay strongly asserted that
right in several speeches. With great vigor he
avocated the recognition of the independence of
the Spanish American colonies, then in a state of
revolution, and severely censured what he
considered the procrastinating policy of the
administration
in that respect. In the session of 1818-’9
he criticised, in an elaborate speech, the conduct
of Gen. Jackson in the Florida campaign,
especially the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister
by Jackson's orders. This was the first collision
between Clay and Jackson, and the ill feelings that
it engendered in Jackson's mind were never
extinguished. At the first session of the 16th congress,
in December, 1819, Clay was again elected speaker
almost without opposition. In the debate on the
treaty with Spain, by which Florida was ceded to
the United States, he severely censured the
administration for having given up Texas, which he held
to belong to the United States as a part of the
Louisiana purchase. He continued to urge the
recognition of the South American colonies as
independent republics.

In 1819-’20 he took an important part in the
struggle in congress concerning the admission of
Missouri as a slave state, which created the first
great political slavery excitement throughout the
country. He opposed the “restriction” clause
making the admission of Missouri dependent upon
the exclusion of slavery from the state, but
supported the compromise proposed by Senator
Thomas, of Illinois, admitting Missouri with
slavery, but excluding slavery from all the territory
north of 30° 30', acquired by the Louisiana
purchase. This was the first part of the Missouri
compromise, which is often erroneously attributed
to Clay. When Missouri then presented herself
with a state constitution, not only recognizing
slavery, but also making it the duty of the legislature
to pass such laws as would be necessary to
prevent free negroes or mulattoes from coming
into the state, the excitement broke out anew, and
a majority in the house of representatives refused
to admit Missouri as a state with such a constitution.
On Clay's motion, the subject was referred
to a special committee, of which he was chairman.
This committee of the house joined with a senate
committee, and the two unitedly reported in both
houses a resolution that Missouri be admitted upon
the fundamental condition that the state should
never make any law to prevent from settling within
its boundaries any description of persons who then
or thereafter might become citizens of any state
of the Union. This resolution was adopted, and
the fundamental condition assented to by
Missouri. This was Clay's part of the Missouri
compromise, and he received general praise as “the
great pacificator.”

After the adjournment of congress, Clay
retired to private life, to devote himself to his legal
practice, but was elected to the 18th congress,
which met in December, 1823. and was again chosen
speaker. He made speeches on internal
improvements, advocating a liberal construction of
constitutional powers, in favor of sending a
commissioner to Greece, and in favor of the tariff law,
which became known as the tariff of 1824, giving his
policy of protection and internal improvements the
name of the “American system.”

He was a candidate for the presidency at the election of 1824. His competitors were John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William H.
Crawford, each of whom received a larger number of electoral votes than Clay. But, as none of them had received a majority of the electoral vote, the election devolved upon the house of representatives. Clay, standing fourth in the number of electoral votes received, was excluded from the choice, and he used his influence in the house for John Quincy Adams, who was elected. The friends of Jackson and Crawford charged that there was a corrupt understanding between Adams and Clay,
and this accusation received color from the fact
that Adams promptly offered Clay the portfolio
of secretary of state, and Clay accepted it. This
was the origin of the “bargain and corruption ”
charge, which, constantly repeated, pursued Clay
during the best part of his public life, although it
was disproved by the well-established fact that
Clay, immediately after the result of the presidential
election in 1824 became known, had declared
his determination to use his influence in the house
for Adams and against Jackson. As secretary of
state under John Quincy Adams, Clay accepted
an invitation, presented by the Mexican and
Colombian ministers, to send commissioners of the United
States to an international congress of American
republics, which was to meet on the Isthmus of Panama,
to deliberate upon subjects of common interest.
The commissioners were appointed, but the
Panama congress adjourned before they could
reach the appointed place of meeting. In the
course of one of the debates on this subject, John
Randolph, of Roanoke, denounced the administration,
alluding to Adams and Clay as a “combination
of the Puritan and the blackleg.” Clay thereupon
challenged Randolph to a duel, which was
fought on 8 April, 1826, without bloodshed. He
negotiated and concluded treaties with Prussia, the
Hanseatic republics, Denmark, Colombia, Central
America, and Austria. His negotiations with
Great Britain concerning the colonial trade
resulted only in keeping in force the conventions of
1815 and 1818. He made another treaty with
Great Britain, extending the joint occupation of
the Oregon country provided for in the treaty of
1818; another referring the differences concerning
the northeastern boundary to some friendly
sovereign or state for arbitration; and still another
concerning the indemnity to be paid by Great
Britain for slaves carried off by British forces in
the war of 1812. As to his commercial policy,
Clay followed the accepted ideas of the times, to
establish between the United States and foreign
countries fair reciprocity as to trade and navigation.
He was made president of the American
colonization society, whose object it was to colonize
free negroes in Liberia on the coast of Africa.

In 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected president,
and after his inauguration Clay retired to his farm
of Ashland, near Lexington, Ky. But, although in
private life, he was generally recognized as the leader
of the party opposing Jackson, who called
themselves “national republicans,” and later “whigs,”
Clay, during the years 1829-’31, visited several
places in the south as well as in the state of Ohio,
was everywhere received with great honors, and
made speeches attacking Jackson's administration,
mainly on account of the sweeping removals
from office for personal and partisan reasons,
and denouncing the nullification movement, which
in the mean time had been set on foot in South
Carolina. Yielding to the urgent solicitation of
his friends throughout the country, he consented
in 1831 to be a candidate for the U. S. senate, and
was elected. In December, 1831, he was nominated
as the candidate of the national republicans for
the presidency, with John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania,
for the vice-presidency. As the impending
extinguishment of the public debt rendered a
reduction of the revenue necessary, Clay introduced
in the senate a tariff bill reducing duties on
unprotected articles, but keeping them on protected
articles, so as to preserve intact the “American system.”
The reduction of the revenue thus effected
was inadequate, and the anti-tariff excitement in
the south grew more intense. The subject of public
lands having, for the purpose of embarrassing
him as a presidential candidate, been referred to
the committee on manufactures, of which he was
the leading spirit, he reported against reducing the
price of public lands and in favor of distributing
the proceeds of the lands' sales, after certain
reductions, among the several states for a limited
period. The bill passed the senate, but failed to
pass the house. As President Jackson, in his
several messages, had attacked the U. S. bank. Clay
induced the bank, whose charter was to expire in
1836, to apply for a renewal of the charter during
the session of 1831-’2, so as to force the issue
the presidential election. The bill renewing the
charter passed both houses, but Jackson vetoed it,
denouncing the bank in his message as a dangerous
monopoly. In the presidential election Clay
was disastrously defeated, Jackson receiving 219
electoral votes, and Clay only 49.

On 19 Nov., 1832, a state convention in South
Carolina passed an ordinance nullifying the tariff
laws of 1828 and 1832. On 10 Dec., President
Jackson issued a proclamation against the
nullifiers, which the governor of South Carolina
answered with a counter-proclamation. On 12 Feb.,
1833, Clay introduced, in behalf of union and
peace, a compromise bill providing for a gradual
reduction of the tariff until 1842, when it should
be reduced to a horizontal rate of 20 per cent.
This bill was accepted by the nullifiers, and
became a law, known as the compromise of 1833.
South Carolina rescinded the nullification
ordinance, and Clay was again praised as the “great
pacificator.” In the autumn of 1833, President
Jackson, through the secretary of the treasury,
ordered the removal of the public deposits from
the U. S. bank. Clay, in December, 1833, introduced
resolutions in the senate censuring the
president for having “assumed upon himself
authority and power not conferred by the constitution
and laws.” The resolutions were adopted,
and President Jackson sent to the senate an
earnest protest against them, which was severely
denounced by Clay. During the session of 1834-’5
Clay successfully opposed Jackson's recommendation
that authority be conferred on him for making
reprisals upon French property on account of the
non-payment by the French government of an
indemnity due to the United States. He also
advocated the enactment of a law enabling Indians to
defend their rights to their lands in the courts of
the United States; also the restriction of the president's
power to make removals from office, and the
repeal of the four-years act. The slavery question
having come to the front again, in consequence of
the agitation carried on by the abolitionists, Clay,
in the session of 1835-”6, pronounced himself
favor of the reception by the senate of anti-slavery
petitions, and against the exclusion of anti-slavery
literature from the mails. He declared, however,
his opposition to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. With regard to the
recognition of Texas as an independent state, he
maintained a somewhat cold and reserved attitude. In
the session of 1836-’7 he reintroduced his land bill
without success, and advocated international
copyright. His resolutions censuring Jackson for the
removal of the deposits, passed in 1834, were, on
the motion of Thomas H. Benton, expunged from
the records of the senate, against solemn protest
from the whig minority in that body.

Martin Van Buren was elected president in 1836, and immediately after his inauguration the great financial crisis of 1837 broke out. At an extra session of congress, in the summer of 1837, he
recommended the introduction of the sub-treasury
system. This was earnestly opposed by Clay, who
denounced it as a scheme to “unite the power of
the purse with the power of the sword.” He and
his friends insisted upon the restoration of the U.
S. bank. After a struggle of three sessions, the
sub-treasury bill succeeded, and the long existence
of the system has amply proved the groundlessness
of the fears expressed by those who opposed it.
Clay strongly desired to be the whig candidate for
the presidency in 1840, but failed. The whig
national convention, in December, 1839, nominated
Harrison and Tyler. Clay was very much incensed
at his defeat, but supported Harrison with great
energy, making many speeches in the famous
“log-cabin and hard-cider ” campaign. After the
triumphant election of Harrison and Tyler, Clay
declined the office of secretary of state offered to him.
Harrison died soon after his inauguration. At the
extra session of congress in the summer of 1841,
Clay was the recognized leader of the whig majority.
He moved the repeal of the sub-treasury
act, and drove it through both houses. He then
brought in a bill providing for the incorporation
of a new bank of the United States, which also
passed, but was vetoed by President Tyler, 16 Aug.,
1841. Another bank bill, framed to meet what
were supposed to be the president's objections, was
also vetoed. Clay denounced Tyler instantly for
what he called his faithlessness to whig principles,
and the whig party rallied under Clay's leadership
in opposition to the president. At the same
session Clay put through his land bill, containing the
distribution clause, which, however, could not go
into operation because the revenues of the government
fell short of the necessary expenditures. At
the next session Clay offered an amendment to the
constitution limiting the veto power, which during
Jackson's and Tyler's administrations had become
very obnoxious to him; and also an amendment to
the constitution providing that the secretary of the
treasury and the treasurer should be appointed by
congress; and a third forbidding the appointment
members of congress, while in office, to executive
positions. None of them passed. On 31 March,
1842, Clay took leave of the senate and retired to
private life, as he said in his farewell speech, never
to return to the senate.

During his retirement he visited different parts
the country, and was everywhere received with
great enthusiasm, delivering speeches, in some of
which he pronounced himself in favor not of a
“high tariff,” but of a revenue tariff with
incidental protection repeatedly affirming that the
protective system had been originally designed only
a temporary arrangement to be maintained until
the infant industries should have gained sufficient
strength to sustain competition with foreign
manufactures. It was generally looked upon as
certain that he would be the Whig candidate for the
presidency in 1844. In the mean time the
administration had concluded a treaty of annexation
with Texas. In an elaborate letter, dated 17 April,
1844, known as the “Raleigh letter,” Clay declared
himself against annexation, mainly because it would
bring on a war with Mexico, because it met with
serious objection in a large part of the Union, and
because it would compromise the national character.
Van Buren, who expected to be the democratic
candidate for the presidency, also wrote a
letter unfavorable to annexation. On 1 May, 1844,
the whig national convention nominated Clay by
acclamation. The democratic national convention
animated not Van Buren, but James K. Polk for
the presidency, with George M. Dallas for the
vice-presidency, and adopted a resolution recommending
the annexation of Texas. A convention of
anti-slavery men was held at Buffalo, N. Y., which put
forward as a candidate for the presidency James
G. Birney. The senate rejected the annexation
treaty, and the Texas question became the main
issue in the presidential canvass. As to the tariff
and the currency question, the platforms of the
democrats and whigs differed very little. Polk,
who had the reputation of being a free-trader,
wrote a letter apparently favoring a protective
tariff, to propitiate Pennsylvania, where the cry
was raised. “Polk, Dallas, and the tariff of 1842.”
Clay, yielding to the entreaties of southern whigs,
who feared that his declaration against the
annexation of Texas might injure his prospects in
the south, wrote another letter, in which he said
that, far from having any personal objection to the
annexation of Texas, he would be “glad to see it
without dishonor, without war, with the common
consent of the Union, and upon fair terms.” This
turned against him many anti-slavery men in the
north, and greatly strengthened the Birney movement.
It is believed that it cost him the vote of
the state of New York, and with it the election.
It was charged, apparently upon strong grounds,
that extensive election frauds were committed by
the Democrats in the city of New York and in the
state of Louisiana, the latter becoming famous as
the Plaquemines frauds; but had Clay kept the
anti-slavery element on his side, as it was at the
beginning of the canvass, these frauds could not
have decided the election. His defeat cast the whig
party into the deepest gloom, and was lamented by
his supporters like a personal misfortune.

Texas was annexed by a joint resolution which
passed the two houses of congress in the session
of 1844-’5, and the Mexican war followed. In
1846, Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, moved, as an amendment
to a bill appropriating money for purposes
connected with the war, a proviso that in all territories
to be acquired from Mexico slavery should
be forever prohibited, which, however, failed in the
senate. This became known as the “Wilmot
proviso.” One of Clay's sons was killed in the battle
of Buena Vista. In the autumn of 1847, when the
Mexican army was completely defeated, Clay made
a speech at Lexington, Ky., warning the American
people of the dangers that would follow if they
gave themselves up to the ambition of conquest,
and declaring that there should be a generous
peace, requiring no dismemberment of the Mexican
republic, but “only a just and proper fixation of
the limits of Texas.” and that any desire to acquire
any foreign territory whatever for the purpose of
propagating slavery should be “positively and
emphatically” disclaimed. In February and March,
1848, Clay was honored with great popular receptions
in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York,
and his name was again brought forward for the
presidential nomination. But the whig national
convention, which met on 7 June, 1848, preferred
Gen. Zachary Taylor as a more available man, with
Millard Fillmore for the vice-presidency. His
defeat in the convention was a bitter disappointment
to Clay. He declined to come forward to the
support of Taylor, and maintained during the canvass
an attitude of neutrality. The principal reason he
gave was that Taylor had refused to pledge
himself to the support of whig principles and
measures, and that Taylor had announced his purpose
to remain in the field as a candidate, whoever
might be nominated by the whig convention. He
declined, on the other hand, to permit his name to be used by the dissatisfied whigs. Taylor was
elected, the free-soilers, whose candidate was Martin
Van Buren, having assured the defeat of the
democratic candidate, Gen. Cass, in the state of
New York. In the spring of 1849 a convention
was to be elected in Kentucky to revise the state
constitution, and Clay published a letter
recommending gradual emancipation of the slaves. By
a unanimous vote of the legislature assembled in
December, 1848, Clay was again elected a U. S.
senator, and he took his seat in December, 1849.

By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, New Mexico
and California, including Utah, had been
acquired by the United States. The discovery of
gold had attracted a large immigration to
California. Without waiting for an enabling act, the
inhabitants of California, in convention, had
framed a constitution by which slavery was
prohibited, and applied to congress for admission as a
state. The question of the admission of California
as a free state, and the other question whether
slavery should be admitted into or excluded from
New Mexico and Utah, created the intensest
excitement in congress and among the people. Leading
southern men threatened a dissolution of the
Union unless slavery were admitted into the territories
acquired from Mexico. On 29 Jan., 1850,
Clay, who was at heart in favor of the Wilmot
proviso, brought forward in the senate a “comprehensive
scheme of compromise,” which included
(1) the speedy admission of California as a state;
(2) the establishment of territorial governments in
New Mexico and Utah without any restriction as
to slavery; (3) a settlement of the boundary-line
between Texas and New Mexico substantially as
it now stands; (4) an indemnity to be paid to
Texas for the relinquishment of her claims to a
large portion of New Mexico; (5) a declaration
that slavery should not be abolished in the
District of Columbia; (6) the prohibition of the slave-trade
in the district; and (7) a more effective
fugitive-slave law. These propositions were, on
18 April, 1850, referred to a special committee, of
which Clay was elected chairman. He reported
three bills embodying these different subjects, one
of which, on account of its comprehensiveness, was
called the “omnibus bill.” After a long struggle,
the omnibus bill was defeated; but then its different
parts wore taken up singly, and passed, covering
substantially Clay's original propositions.
This was the compromise of 1850. In the debate
Clay declared in the strongest terms his allegiance
to the Union as superior to his allegiance to his
state, and denounced secession as treason. The
compromise of 1850 added greatly to his renown;
but, although it was followed by a short period of
quiet, it satisfied neither the south nor the north.
To the north the fugitive-slave law was especially
distasteful. In January, 1851, forty-four senators
and representatives, Clay's name leading, published
a manifesto declaring that they would not support
for any office any man not known to be opposed
to any disturbance of the matters settled by the
compromise. In February, 1851, a recaptured
fugitive slave having been liberated in Boston,
Clay pronounced himself in favor of conferring
upon the president extraordinary powers for the
enforcement of the fugitive-slave law, his main
object being to satisfy the south, and thus to
disarm the disunion spirit.

After the adjournment of congress, on 4 March,
1851, his health being much impaired, he went to
Cuba for relief, and thence to Ashland. He
peremptorily enjoined his friends not to bring forward
his name again as that of a candidate for the
presidency. To a committee of whigs in New
York he addressed a public letter containing an
urgent and eloquent plea for the maintenance of the
Union. He went to Washington to take his seat
in the senate in December, 1851, but, owing to
failing health, he appeared there only once during
the winter. His last public utterance was a short
speech addressed to Louis Kossuth, who visited
him in his room, deprecating the entanglement of
the United States in
the complications of
European affairs. He
favored the nomination
of Fillmore for
the presidency by the
whig national
convention, which met on
16 June, a few days
before his death. Clay
was unquestionably
one of the greatest
orators that America
ever produced; a
man of incorruptible
personal integrity;
of very great natural
ability, but little
study; of free and
convivial habits; of singularly winning address and
manners; not a cautious and safe political leader,
but a splendid party chief, idolized by his followers.
He was actuated by a lofty national spirit, proud
of his country, and ardently devoted to the Union.
It was mainly his anxiety to keep the Union
intact that inspired his disposition to compromise
contested questions. He had in his last hours the
satisfaction of seeing his last great work, the
compromise of 1850, accepted as a final settlement of
the slavery question by the national conventions of
both political parties. But only two years after
his death it became evident that the compromise
had settled nothing. The struggle about slavery
broke out anew, and brought forth a civil war, the
calamity that Clay had been most anxious to
prevent, leading to general emancipation, which Clay
would have been glad to see peaceably
accomplished. He was buried in the cemetery at
Lexington, Ky., and a monument consisting of a tall
column surmounted by a statue was erected over
his tomb. The accompanying illustrations show his
birthplace and tomb. See “Life of Henry Clay,”
by George D. Prentice (Hartford, Conn., 1831);
“Speeches,” collected by R. Chambers (Cincinnati,
1842); “Life and Speeches of Henry Clay,” by J.
B. Swaim (New York, 1843); “Life of Henry Clay,”
by Epes Sargent (1844, edited and completed by
Horace Greeley, 1852); “Life and Speeches of
Henry Clay,” by D. Mallory (1844; new ed., 1857);
“Life and Times of Henry Clay,” by Rev. Calvin
Colton (6 vols., containing speeches and
correspondence, 1846-’57; revised ed., 1864); and
“Henry Clay,” by Carl Schurz (2 vols., Boston,
1887). — His brother, Porter, clergyman, b. in
Virginia in March, 1779; d. in 1850. He removed
to Kentucky in early life, where he studied law,
and was for a while auditor of public accounts. In
1815 he was converted and gave himself to the
Baptist ministry, in which he was popular and
useful. — Henry's son, Henry, lawyer, b. in
Ashland, Ky., 10 April, 1811; killed in action at Buena
Vista, Mexico, 23 Feb., 1847, was graduated at
Transylvania university in 1828, and at the U.S.
military academy in 1831. He resigned from the
army and studied law, was admitted to the bar in
1833, and was a member of the Kentucky legislature in 1835-’7. He went to the Mexican war in June,
1846, as lieutenant-colonel of the 2d Kentucky
volunteers, became extra aide-de-camp to Gen. Taylor,
5 Oct., 1846, and was killed with a lance while
gallantly leading a charge of his regiment. — Another
son, James Brown, b. in Washington, D. C., 9
Nov., 1817; d. in Montreal, Canada, 26 Jan., 1864,
was educated at Transylvania university, was two
years in a counting-house in Boston, 1835-’6,
emigrated to St. Louis, Mo., which then contained
only 8,000 inhabitants, settled on a farm, then
engaged in manufacturing for two years in Kentucky,
and afterward studied law in the Lexington
law-school, and practised in partnership with
his father till 1849, when he was appointed chargé
d'affaires at Lisbon by President Taylor. In
1851-’3 he resided in Missouri, but returned to
Kentucky upon becoming the proprietor of
Ashland, after his father's death. In 1857 he was
elected to represent his father's old district in
congress. He was a member of the peace convention
of 1861, but afterward embraced the secessionist
cause, and died in exile.